


of princes & curses & magicky things

by floweryfran



Series: do me wrong, do me wrong, do me wrong [4]
Category: Fantastic Four, Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: M/M, Sleeping Beauty AU, Spideytorch Week 2020, dont worry i changed things up, fairytale AU, instead of just mentioning it in passing, it's the remix to ignition hot and fresh out my laptop, non-canon ending, spideytorchweek, wow i cant wait to write a whole fic about johnnys shit self esteem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: “Hello,” Jonathan says, a little too loud because the sound was ripped unwittingly from his throat. He claps a hand over his mouth, regretting everything from his conception to his birth to the way he so impressively survived childhood to every single decision that had contributed to him now coming to stand here, making an ass of himself in the woods.The boy leaps in surprise and turns.His hair is wavy against his forehead. His eyes are enormous. What he lacks in height, he makes up for in sheer shoulder-to-waist ratio.The boy runs.“Oh, fuck,” Jonathan says, and, as if he’s being pulled along on a string, slides off Samson and scrambles to follow.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Series: do me wrong, do me wrong, do me wrong [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848790
Comments: 28
Kudos: 97
Collections: SpideyTorch Week 2020





	of princes & curses & magicky things

**Author's Note:**

> MY DARLING HAN HAS TAKEN THIS DAY TO MAKE A PIECE OF FANART FOR THIS STORY!! I SHALL BE LINKING IT RIGHT [HERE](https://han-man.tumblr.com/post/625161599467012096/a-different-kind-of-fairytale-art-for-of-princes) PLEASE GO LOOK AT IT BECAUSE IT'S MIRACULOUS!!
> 
> before we start: i changed the curse to elapse on the nineteenth birthday of the cursed rather than the 16th. i think we all understand why 😙 i also elected to maintain johnny’s status as a prince rather than moving him to dukedom at val and franklin’s births because of The Drama
> 
> also another note: i changed some details from the og story! don't be upset that it's different from the Disney story please--i was trying very hard to make it less problematic.
> 
> spideytorch week day 5: fairytale au

The Good Prince Jonathan and the Bold Prince Peter were born to two separate but equally ravishing royal families in a year so distantly past that not even they could entertain a guess as to when it was. 

Time is fucked like that. 

Jonathan was of the North, of a land where the sun shone long into the night and cast great a great golden glow across the whole of the Kingdom, as if it had been rolled in honey and oats and grew to be gilded. 

Peter was of the South, where the earth was so fertile that the harvests burdened the baskets of the people and the forest was so thick with salty loam that the trees grew fragrant and verdant and sky-scrapingly tall. 

It was an age of class and stature—of great surplus and contentment in both Kingdoms. The rulers made sure it was so. Upon the passing of King Richard and Queen Mary of the South, the throne was taken by the uncle and aunt of Peter—a pair of wholehearted, loving monarchs deeply in touch with the needs of their people. Upon the later passing of King Benjamin, Queen May wore the crown with a stiff lip and a bleeding heart, loving her Kingdom the way she would have loved her family if they’d only been able to stay. 

Queen Sue of the North was much the same, striving for herself and her husband King Reed to venture into their cities and champion their citizens in the face of harsh winters or bandits afoot. They were all of great faith in their own power as rulers, and their subsequent obligation to fulfill every need of their people. For this, they were granted well-earned respect, which was paid back in kind with great festivals and feasts of all sorts. For all the people cooperated with their rulers, the rulers kept them healthy and safe. 

As a result, there was joy throughout the lands—infectious joy of the sort that forged a bond not only among the people, but between the people and their rulers. And the willing openness of the rulers… had the people quite invested in the goings-on of the palaces. 

Thus, there was a great wave of excitement when, at the time of Prince Peter’s birth at the tapered end of summer, the two Princes had been promised to one another. Upon the moment of their marriage, the two prosperous Kingdoms would join into one, thick with culture and bounty and great power. A land of harmony. 

And perhaps a hint of magic to help it all along. 

Of course, not all goes to plan. 

With these two particular Princes more than most, it becomes abundantly clear rather early on that trouble has a knack for kicking their knees out before they manage to find their footing. 

Their story begins the same as most: a birth or two, a handful of faeries, a missing invite to an absolute balls-to-the-wall rager, a curse, a presumed death to cover a secret life. 

And, with that, the Bold Prince Peter is disappeared into a forest so deep and ripe with fruit and fauna that it could easily sustain him and his three vaguely responsible if highly unconventional attendants for the long elapsing cursed years before he might safely return to the palace to claim his throne and his Prince and his Kingdom. 

The cottage is quaint and smells eternally of clean cotton and yeast and something much sweeter—a thing so delicate and divine that Peter could never name it, despite how familiar it becomes to him as he grows up. It clings to the cushions of the chaise upon which he first crawled; it clings to the linen curtains that hang over the windows and drag through the dust on the hardwood floors; it clings to the wooden countertop in the kitchen, upon which Peter had been seated as he’d said his first word: _Putain!_

That had been Harry’s influence, undoubtedly. As well as he’s always got on with Mary Jane and Gwendolyne, Harry has been his dearest companion through his years. Their bond is special. Unbreakable. To this day—now that Peter is so near to nineteen—Harry is Peter’s confidant. 

He is candid with all three. But there’s something about knowing Harry won’t question the weird white gunk sticking the stockings at the bottom of his wardrobe shut that binds them together like nothing else. 

When he was younger, Peter hadn’t known what to call them. Remaining to this day under the belief that he is truly a peasant child being raised by three rather young adults hadn’t simplified things. They weren’t _mère_ and _père,_ nor were they his _fratrie._ There was a brief stretch where he became rather petulant and called them nothing at all—he’d been shouted at for climbing the trellis and, really, it wasn’t like he was going to fall, they hadn’t needed to take away his _books_ to punish him—but they’d settled for Harry, Gwendolyne, and Mary Jane when it came down to it. That’s who they always were to him, and, Peter is fairly certain, that’s who they’ll always be. Something definable only by being them. 

Now, Peter pulls on his least stinking tunic—he desperately needs to do a wash in the brook—and the only pair of stockings he hasn’t yet grown out of and runs barefoot down the stairs, the smell of strong tea pulling him along. Peppermint and something sweet. It’s lovely. It’s early. God grant him mercy and put the sun away. 

“Good morning, my little tiger,” Mary Jane says from where she’s manhandling some tea leaves, smushing them against the pot to infuse the water. Gwendolyne is perched upon the countertop, chewing on a piece of the crusty bread she’d made the day before. 

Peter goes to her, accepting the kiss she presses to his forehead and scowling as she ruffles his already-mussed hair. “Good morning, Gwendy.”

“An’ t’ ‘oo,” Gwen says through her mouthful. Her nose wrinkles and she swallows with a loud gulp. “You smell like feet.”

“Eau de Peter, is it not? You should find it comforting, by now.”

Mary Jane leans over the counter to hand a teacup to Peter, who takes it with a pat to her hand. 

“Where’s Harry this morning?” he asks, blowing at the steam, hunching over its warmth. He’s always been so attracted to the heat. It’s the only thing that can pull him out of bed before midday. 

Gwen gestures towards the living area. “Look for yourself.”

When Peter turns, he sees Harry facedown on the carpet, snoring up a storm. 

“Ah,” he says. “Overindulged again, has he?”

“You know him,” Gwen says. She always looks sad when talking about Harry. “A mind as full as his will draw a man to search for a moment of quiet, no matter what it costs.” 

Mary Jane crosses her arms, leaning on the edge of the table. She gets sad for Harry, too, but she’s more often frustrated. “There’s a limit, you know, to how often he should be allowed to do this before we put our foot down.”

“As if you don’t partake yourself,” Peter says, grinning cheekily at her, “and then ask dear Gwendolyne to play a bit of lute so you can dance into the early hours of the morning.”

“Well, there isn’t much opportunity to go charming a tavern full of burly men in the middle of the forest—much less break out one of my old gowns and go for a turn with a Prince or two.” Mary Jane sighs a little. “Every bit of me misses the old days. There was nothing quite like slathering on a face of powder and rouge and dancing with Duke Eugene until my shoes wore down and he threatened his own death by means of an enthusiastic waltz.”

Peter doesn’t know how to respond, so he takes a deep sip of his tea. 

“Oh,” Mary Jane says, “no, don’t—Peter.” She comes around the table to take his shoulders in her hands, her thumb skimming along the skin of his neck. “You’re our life,” she says. “I wouldn’t trade you for all the balls in the world.”

Peter ruminates for a moment, then says, “That’s what she said.” 

Mary Jane pushes him away, but she snorts all the same, so Peter knows he’s won. She returns to her tea, soaking an especially strong cup that Peter assumes will be for Harry when he awakens. 

“I’m going to go collect berries, today,” Peter says, watching the water grow steadily muddier. “If Harry’s polished out our wine storage, we’ll be needing more. The sooner I go, the sooner we can get brewing.”

Gwen hums a little. “Should we even bother stocking up again? Wouldn’t it be better for us to take away the cream before the cat drinks himself sick?”

Peter shrugs. “If I’m driving him to drink, I might as well let him do it in earnest.”

“It’s not _you_ driving him to drink,” Gwen says, exasperated. “It’s a force of habit.” 

“Was he in the habit before you all took me in?” 

“No,” she admits, “not like this, but—correlation does not imply causation.”

“Hm.” Peter looks at her over the rim of his cup. She stares back, always so calculating—as if she’s laid him out on a plane and is marking the spots where he lands. She’s so dastardly smart that it’s like talking around a knife to converse with her. He loves it. “I’ll check the cupboards. If not berries for wine, I’m sure there’s something else we’ll need.”

Gwen and Mary Jane share a look over Peter’s shoulder. He glances between them, hoping to comprehend some unspoken something, but he’s never been able to learn the language they speak when they’re alone. And they _always_ make it seem like they’re alone together, even when the room is full with all four of them. 

“Alright,” Mary Jane says, stepping away from the tea. She dries her cracked hands on a cloth. “Perhaps some sprouts, and some apples?”

Gwen grins toothily, a strange sense of relief passing over her face like crepuscular rays after a storm. “Yes, darling,” she reaches over to grab Peter’s hands and pull him nearer, “lots of apples.” She pats his cheek, kisses the tip of his nose. “We’ve got herbs, no need for that, but apples would be good with crepes, no?”

Peter smiles back, always unable to remain stoic when Gwen looks like she’s swallowed the moon whole. “What a birthday treat. Crepes for my nineteenth.”

“We’ve got enough flour to make a whole big batch,” Mary Jane adds, smirking from across the kitchen. “A celebratory feast. And don’t bother to rush back—give us plenty of time to prepare.”

“Goodness,” Peter says, fluttering his lashes, “all that for little old me?”

Gwen shoves his shoulder with a laugh, but she’s still strangely earnest as she says, “Anything for you, Peter. You know that, right?”

Peter’s chest goes warm. “Yeah,” he says. “And I’d do double that for any of you. I dunno how you managed me all these years, but you should have a medal for it.” 

“We should,” Mary Jane agrees. 

“It was worth every pain,” Gwen says. “Remember that.” 

And so Peter is warmed down to the very bits of himself when he collects his berry-picking basket and his cloak and boots. The day is beautiful, the forest serenely swaying in the gentle mid-morning breeze, and Peter is here in the midst of it. And that has to mean something. 

~

Prince Jonathan has always had an eye for beauty. 

Jonathan thinks if he keeps in tune with the fruit-studded brambles of the forest and the endless swathes of yellow grass and the crystal cut of pale blue sky spreading along the horizon well enough, he could be all the prettier for it too. 

Each morning, Jonathan rises for a bath, rubbing musky oils into his skin and maintaining the soft curl of his hair. He dries off, covers the smattering of roguish freckles on his cheeks with a layer of powder, and dresses in something simple. He needn’t bury himself in layers of lovely cloaks and bejeweled pants like the lords of old. It’s been ingrained in him since childhood, when his bassinet was painted with great swathes of stars and fireplace flames: he is brilliant. Right down to the bones of him, he is meant to be brilliant. 

And, with a jawline like his, who could deny it?

His reflection scoffs at the thought. The edifice of Jonathan’s body is undeniably well-structured, but what worth is an edifice without something wholehearted and lovely to fill it with? 

It’s not that going into the towns and meeting with his people doesn’t make him useful, doesn’t make him a good leader, but he never quite feels he lives up to that light he’s supposed to emit. 

He’s always had a gut feeling he’ll need someone at his side to feel entirely whole. That had been the cause for his handful of flings with Lady Crystal and Duchess Lyja, amongst others. Sir Bobby, for one, had been fun. They’d _all_ been fun. But they hadn’t been serious—not with his betrothal hanging over him—and they certainly hadn’t been what Jonathan had been looking for. 

He wants permanence and promise. He wants for a future, and for the patter of little feet upon the marble floors of his great halls. Or kitten nails clicking, at the least. 

God forbid he becomes a cat lady before he’s twenty. 

There’s always, of course, the chance that his Prince still lives—that he’ll come to the palace gates with a flourish and a bow, all pomp and grandeur, and sweep Jonathan off his feet to carry him to their marriage suite, where he’ll have his merry way with Jonathan. 

He would like someone to have their merry way with him. He thinks about it a lot, actually. 

So, maybe, that merry version of him in his subconscious is what draws him towards the forest. 

It lies dead between the land of his family and that of his betrothed, equidistant between their castles. It feels all the closer to that promise—as if the forest’s winding pathways and great ferns and gentle humming streams will bring him closer to Peter. Closer to their future. Closer to completion. 

He climbs astride his horse, decked in his reddest cloak and hat combination. Not that he’s expecting anyone. It’s just that there always might be someone. Somewhere. Anywhere. 

He’s not a nutcase. He’s just so hopeful. 

The air is beautiful, springy and crisp around him as he rides, Samson’s great muscles undulating between his own thighs. He loses himself between the great thick tree stumps and the soft grasses; the bushes all bowed with the weight of berries and the dappled sun spots on the underbrush. 

The air is thick with birdsong, and then with something else. Deeper, gruffer. A laugh. 

Jonathan is so dumbstruck that he wrenches Samson to a stop. 

Manifesting. Maybe it really does work. 

For a moment he sits there blankly. Then he says, “Let’s follow it.” 

Samson whinnies doggedly and tries to continue along their usual path. 

“Oh, come on,” Jonathan goads, leaning forward to press his cheek to Samson’s warm jaw. “For an extra bucket of oats? And some carrots?”

Samson seems to chew on this for a moment before heading towards the faded, worn-leather laugh. 

Jonathan nurses a thrill in his stomach. He sort of feels like he’s going to vomit right into Samson’s mane, but Samson would quite literally stomp him to death if he did, so he tries to hold it down. 

It’s in a clearing that he sees the origin of the sound. 

There stands a boy. His back is to Jonathan, a brown cloak swallowing his shape. Around him, the branches are heavy with twittering, jewel-toned birds in all sorts of shapes. The boy points at the birds one at a time and they whistle for him. Like a grand conductor before his orchestra, the boy directs and the birds crow and the boy laughs delightedly. 

“Alright, alright,” the boy says, “you, how about you?”

A young-looking bird gives a croaky little whistle. 

“Okay, that was super bad. But your spirit? Amazing.” The boy gives some applause, then goes forward to rub the bird’s tiny head with a knuckle. “Show-stopping. Excellent. You just gotta practice, buddy. You have all the foundations to be a great soprano one day.”

The birds chirp erratically and the boy continues to poke at them. A woven basket swings from his elbow, all laden with sprouts and yellowish apples. He looks like someone out of a vision. 

Jonathan knuckles his eyes just to make sure this is true. That’s he’s living this. 

The boy stays. Real. A squirrel circles his ankle. Really, really real. 

“Hello,” Jonathan says, a little too loud because the sound was ripped unwittingly from his throat. He claps a hand over his mouth, regretting everything from his conception to his birth to the way he so impressively survived childhood to every single decision that had contributed to him now coming to stand here, making an ass of himself in the woods. 

The boy leaps in surprise and turns. 

His hair is wavy against his forehead. His eyes are enormous. What he lacks in height, he makes up for in sheer shoulder-to-waist ratio. 

The boy runs. 

“Oh, fuck,” Jonathan says, and, as if he’s being pulled along on a string, slides off Samson and scrambles to follow. 

The undergrowth tangles around his boots, uneven roots rolling against the soles of his feet. Everything smells woodsy and salted, earthy and good, and the boy’s cloak is so brown. So worn, and so brown. Brown like his messy hair and the soft mud sticking to Jonathan’s boots and the tree bark blurring past them both. Everything beautiful comes somehow from this great and worldly brownness. 

“Would you stop—fucking—following me?” the boy yells, shooting a surreptitious glance over his shoulder. 

“No,” Jonathan calls cheerfully. “Who are you? Why are you in the wood?”

The boy wheezes pointedly. “It’s public property, asshole.”

“Then act public, douchebag! Who are you?”

The boy stops short. So short, indeed, that Jonathan, who had been gaining on him, cannot stop in time, and rather bowls the both of them over in a clump of wool and ribs and snapped twigs. 

“Hello,” Jonathan tries again, muffled by the boy’s chest. He pushes up just enough to meet his eyes. 

“Hi,” the boy says dryly. “Would you get off of me now?”

“Hm,” says Jonathan. “I don’t think I will. Thank you.”

“Your knee is jabbing my—”

“Ah.” Jonathan moves it. But remains. Pinning the boy. “Might you give me your name?” 

“No.”

“And why ever not?”

“Because you’re a stranger,” the boy says. 

Jonathan grins with half of his mouth, then drops his chin onto the boy’s chest. He’s awfully comfortable. Just the right balance between muscle and fluff. “Really? Because I, for one—well. I’ve dreamt about this moment every night of my life. How could we possibly be strangers if some part of me has known you forever?”

“Smooth,” the boy comments. 

“I know,” Jonathan agrees. “I’ve been saving that for—well, someone.”

“Me?” the boy asks. 

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Jonathan gives him a wicked grin. “Here’s my ultimatum—our challenge. I won’t move until you decide we’re not strangers. I won’t move until I have your name.”

The boy’s eyes trace Jonathan’s face for a moment before a slow smile splits on his lips, trepidation sliding away like muck in the rain. “Alright,” he says. “Give it your best shot.”

~

The sky has gone lovely and clear by the time Jonathan is graced with another laugh from the boy. It’s not a particularly sweet laugh, nor joyous. It’s a derisive honk. Jonathan despises it, and the way the boy’s nose wrinkles when he smiles, and the way the boy hooks an elbow beneath his head to cushion it on the grass. He despises the way the boy has taken this in stride. He should be _nervous._ He should be _stuttering._ He isn’t. He’s teasing, and rude, and a little mean. And Jonathan—well, Jonathan despises more than anything the fact that he finds it refreshing. 

He has friends outside the palace, but they never forget who he is. At the back of their minds, they know they’re speaking to a Prince. To them, Jonathan is unattainable. To the boy, Jonathan is not only attainable, but surpassable. This boy doesn’t _know,_ and thus he treats Jonathan like a friendly plague-carrying _rat,_ and it’s _strange_ and it’s _wonderful._

He isn’t much for carrying legitimate conversation until the moment Jonathan asks about his family—which makes his face light up, smoothing all the weird angles of it with this excited sheen. He has no sense of style. He’s got absolutely no joie de vivre. And he sends a thrill through Jonathan’s stomach nonetheless. 

“Harry is incredibly smart,” the boy says, “but really sad. There’s this part of him that’s just _sad,_ and I can’t fix it, which is crazy because I’m obviously the most interesting bastard on the whole of this flat planet of ours.” 

He has a sort of hard face, the boy—all defined brow and crooked nose—but Jonathan thinks he looks so good. 

“And, well, Gwendy couldn’t cook to save her life at first, but someone had to learn, or we’d all have killed each other in a blind hangry rage before we could manage to starve to death thoroughly miserably in some dreadful but sort of romantic way,” the boy says, and Jonathan grins. Jonathan can’t cook either on account of the fact that he’s never had to, but this Gwendy sounds like she’d be sympathetic to his plight. 

“Now you,” the boy says, smacking one of Jonathan’s biceps with his warm palm. “Tell me about your family.”

“Mine,” Jonathan says, and makes a quick decision. “My family is my sister Sue and I, really. Her two children, her husband, and his dearest friend live with us, and they’re my family. My best friends and my family.”

“Tell me more,” the boy demands. “What are they like? Do they look like you? What do they do?”

“They’re…” Jonathan smiles unintentionally. “They’re all brilliant. They’re quite cunning and intelligent. They’re accomplished scholars, really socially powerful. They’re utter nerds. I’m the odd duck, that way.”

“Are you dumb?” the boy asks. 

“No,” Jonathan says, affronted at the suggestion but thrilled by the utter uncouthness of the boy beneath his belly, “no, I’m—I’m just not like them. I’m good at politics, really good at making friends and connections and keeping people happy. I’m a quick learner. But they’re _smart,_ down to the bones of them.”

The boy hums a little. It vibrates against Jonathan’s ribs, a trapped bee. “Not everyone has to be the same sort of smart,” he says. “If you were like them, then no one would be like you.”

And Jonathan—who is pinning a boy he’s just met to the mud, who is promised to a fiancée who might appear from hiding in a few days time, who decidedly does not find satisfaction because it avoids him like a curse—feels his heart trip. He’s _terrible._

Jonathan gives a sweeping look across the forest floor, making sure for the umpteenth time that they’re well and truly alone. He doesn’t want anyone seeing him and reading on his face what he wants to do with the boy. 

Not that he wants to do dirty things to him. Well—not immediately at least. 

No, he wants to kiss the boy’s wrinkled-up forehead, which is so very much worse. Jonathan simply cannot bear himself. 

It’s just that his eyes are awfully hazel, all mossy wood. It’s just that his smile is rough, the stones that trip a stream. It’s just that he’s warm, and here, and very real, and he has eyelashes like the teeth of a comb, and he has a heart beating right against Jonathan’s skin, and God, God, God. 

It has begun to be rude, how attractive the boy is. 

“I’m Jonathan,” he says. “And if you don’t tell me your name and where to find you again, I might die a horrible, pitiful death of exposure as I traipse through these woods attempting to catch a glimpse of you just once more.”

The boy laughs. Well and truly laughs, right from the pit of his stomach, and, _oh._

“I’m Peter,” the boy says. 

Jonathan blinks. “Come again?”

“Peter,” says Peter. “My name is Peter. You have me. Are you happy?”

This is an elaborate hoax. Jonathan is sure of it. God hates him. He’s going to be a martyr before Valeria even makes it onto the throne. 

Jonathan makes an unintentional and embarrassingly hysterical sound. 

“It’s a good name,” Presumably Peter defends. 

“Yes,” Jonathan squeaks, “yes, agreed, I—won’t have any trouble remembering it, at the very least.”

“Oh,” Not Peter says, “do you know another Peter?”

“No, actually,” Jonathan says. He closes his eyes, works his jaw, and then rolls off of Not Peter’s chest. The grass is itchy against his neck. The air feels colder. “I don’t know another Peter. Just the one. The you.”

“I’m quite individual, you know. I’m enough to quantify seven or eight other Peters.”

“I believe it,” Jonathan says. The foliage he glares at does not grant him answers of any sort. “It’s—yes, that seems about right.”

Not Peter sighs. “I should go home before my hags begin to worry.” 

Jonathan looks over at him. He’s all haloed in dandelions, like an earth-sprung crown. He wipes a bit of snot dripping from his nose onto his sleeve. Jonathan simply doesn’t know how his brain looks at this beast and erupts into panic. 

God. Real Peter. Yes Peter. Where is he? Why is Jonathan stuck with this snarky, thick-eyebrowed, slightly stinky version? It’s like asking for allspice and being given pepper and told to use his imagination. 

He looks at Not Peter again. Glares, but not for long. 

He’s always liked pepper. 

Not Peter reaches over, squeezes the bend of Jonathan’s arm once, and then rises. 

While watching Not Peter collect his basket and belongings, Jonathan absently touches his elbow. He wonders if it’s some kind of omen—some sort of challenge to his will. His will is not ironclad. His will is, perhaps, thistle and custard and pillow fluff. 

He wants to run a hand over the crook of Not Peter’s spine. He wants to hold Not Peter’s cheek in his palm and see if it’s as warm as it is pink. He wants to run the fabric of Not Peter’s cloak between his fingers and see if it itches. He is, generally, an idiot. 

“You should come to the cottage tonight,” Not Peter says easily as he rustles through his basket. “See what the girls put together first hand. It’s a nice place. Small, but nice. In the glen, going south from here.”

Jonathan stares. At the thought of a Prince in the home of a commoner, a thrill goes through his stomach. “Yes.”

“There will be loads of food. Probably some drink. It’ll be good.”

“I’ll be there,” Jonathan says. 

Not Peter straightens, clumsily shouldering his cloak. “Tonight? You’ll come? You really mean it?”

Jonathan feels a slow sort of smile spread across his face. This is utterly terrible. “I swear,” he says. “I’ll be at yours tonight.”

“Gwendy makes great crepes,” Not Peter says seriously. “It’ll be fun. It’ll be—a good time.”

“I’m sure,” Jonathan says. Then, “I’m not allowed to be in the woods alone, you know. Not really.” _Not like this. Feeling so strong and so fast._

Not Peter’s eyes catch his. “Then it’s an awfully lucky thing you’re not alone.” Not Peter stares for another moment. “Goodbye, Jon.”

“Until this evening,” Jonathan says. He watches Not Peter turn on his heel and start off, tossing a glance and a single wave over his shoulder before he disappears between the tree trunks. 

Jonathan tosses his arms out blissfully and spins. 

He can’t wait to tell Sue everything. 

~

When Peter returns to the cottage, it’s so clean he wonders for a moment if it was done by magic. Nothing is ever so dust-free, so neatly folded. They live in contained chaos and that’s how they like it. This is different. This is strange. 

There’s a stack of incredible crepes by the fire, and a rather spiffing new blue cloak hanging from the chaise. 

“Oh,” he says, filled with that usual guilt-and-pleasure swirl he gets whenever Harry, Mary Jane, and Gwen go out of their way to do things for him. 

“Surprise!” Gwen says, popping up from behind the chaise. She clambers over the back to grab Peter, pulling him into a hug. The other two come over more gracefully—even Harry, with bags beneath his eyes but a rare and genuine smile on his lips. 

“This is so nice,” Peter says with a stupid sniffle, pressing his face into Harry’s neck and hugging him as tightly as his arms will let him. “You guys are so nice, just the best friends a guy could have.”

“Aw, you old sap,” Harry says, rubbing his knuckles into Peter’s scalp. “We get you a little tuckered out from walking around and you suddenly start having emotions.”

“What a nice night. Holy cow. I can’t wait for you all to meet him.”

The room falls into an immediate quiet. 

“Him?” Gwendy repeats. 

“Peter,” Harry says, pulling away. 

“You met a stranger?” asks Mary Jane, eyes wide. 

“He’s hardly a stranger,” Peter says, contrary to how he’d felt earlier, everything is contrary now, he’s a mess of contrast in the pit of his stomach. At the sharpness of their looks, his mood sours. “It’s like I’ve known him my whole life. This,” he presses his knuckles to the space between his ribs, “this _knows_ him.”

“Oh,” says Mary Jane. 

“He’s in love,” Gwendy whispers. 

“This is _terrible,”_ Harry says dramatically. 

Peter whirls on him. “Why? Why is it so terrible? I’m nineteen. I can make my own decisions.”

“It isn’t that,” Mary Jane says. 

“It’s just—” Gwendolyne says. “Well, Peter,” she moves to take his hands, and the room feels still and cold and far too pristine, “you’re already betrothed.”

A moment of utter quiet. 

“Betrothed?” Peter repeats dangerously. 

“Since the day you were born,” Gwendolyne says. “To the Prince of the Northern Kingdom.”

“Oh,” Peter says. _Oh,_ he says, to relay the fact that his chest has collapsed like a faulty mine, coal and diamonds falling into the pit like loose buttons. He shakes his head. “That’s impossible. How could _I_ marry a Prince? I’m a shit-streaked peasant living in the middle of the woods.”

“You’re not,” Gwendolyne breathes. “You’re royalty.”

“Prince Peter of the Southern Kingdom,” Mary Jane says, her shoulders pushed back, her voice hard with something like pride. “And tonight we’re returning you to your aunt, Queen May.” 

“Stop—joking,” Peter says. He looks between them. “This isn’t funny. This is super fucked up. Stop pulling my leg.”

“We’re not,” Harry says, and for all that Harry says, Peter can tell when it’s truthful. This rings like bronze bells at dawn. 

His stomach sinks. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he says. 

“We swore,” says Gwen. “To protect you, we couldn’t tell a soul. Not even you.” 

“I can’t,” Peter says. “I can’t,” he repeats, angrier, blindsided, a fucking _Prince,_ “he’s coming here tonight! I promised I’d meet him!”

“I’m sorry,” Mary Jane says, jaw clenched. “I’m sorry, Peter, but you can’t. You can’t see him again. Ever.”

Peter had known that was coming. He had. But it still simmers hot in his stomach. For once in his life he’s met someone—anyone, anyone who doesn’t live between these four godforsaken walls, and, yes, he’s clinging stupidly and immaturely to the idea of it, but Jonathan _burns,_ more flame than boy, and he’s hungry for Peter, and Peter is hungry for that heat—and Peter isn’t going to let it go. These woods have always been good to him. They’ve given him a home, and food, and his three best friends. But, now that he’s tasted what’s out there, he wants far more than this. 

“No,” Peter says. He shakes his head. He cracks his jaw, sets his shoulders and says it once more for good measure, _“No.”_

“We thought you’d be happy,” Harry whispers. 

Peter looks at him, feels guilt, hates the guilt. Hates himself for troubling Harry, Mary Jane, and Gwen. Hates this entire busted situation in all of its dozens of fractured facets. He storms upstairs, tosses himself face first on his bed, and half hopes his pillow becomes sentient and smothers him. He intends to wait here like a rock until Jonathan’s dainty little knuckles rap on the door. Until then. 

~

This is about the time things go wrong. 

A nosy crow. A fog over Peter’s mind. Green smoke filling his eyes. A giant spider’s pincers. And a deep sleep. 

~

For a moment, when the cabin is empty, Jonathan feels utterly played. 

But then he notices the stillness of it, the medias res of wet dishes in a bucket and cabinet doors tossed open, of an apron tossed over a chair and boots lying overturned in the center of the hall. This was a place abandoned in haste. Jonathan can almost hear the whispers of four figures hurrying away. 

His stomach plummets into his heels. 

The goons descend in a wave. 

They’re laughing horribly, and Jonathan fights, he does, but there’s something sour in the air and something sticky on their scales and they’ve got ropes round his limbs and a gag between his teeth and how, _how_ will Jonathan get himself out of this one? He’s been a fringe fighter for his people; he’s not a knight, not meant for some great and glorious purpose. In all his life so far, he’s hardly ever been _scared._ Now he is. Now his joints feel sticky with it. His hands are pinned. He strains. It’s no use. There are dozens of them, fanged and maniacal, and one of him, feather-boned and cowed. 

In the shadows, a gravelly laugh. A man’s voice: “Oh, you foolish boy. You fallen Prince. I’ll have fun with you, yes I will. I’ve won first prize. It’s time to say goodbye to our Lord of the Shining Sun. Night has come, and the dark is always victorious.”

And Jonathan, adrenaline turning his limbs to soup, succumbs. 

They take him to a castle, all dark precipices and angry gargoyles. It smells of dankness and wet stone and something almost spiced—the heavy, heady scent of magic rides the air like a poison. The drawbridge is awful, the entrance guarded with stone fists that have gone green-tinged and brassy with the wear of years and weather. The wood deteriorates beneath their feet as they walk. 

They pull Jonathan up winding staircases, his restrained shins smacking the stone edge of every step. He’s certainly bruised. God forbid he becomes deformed and lumpy for life after this night. 

The thought is abhorrent. So Jonathan strains. He fights. But magic is here, and Jonathan is the antithesis of magic. He’s the _real._ He’s the walls and the wooden floors and the fire in the furnace. Magic is beyond him. It always has been. 

Jonathan is well and dizzy by the time Mysterio magically shackles him to the wall of a cell and locks the door behind him. 

It’s a tight fit, but both him and his bruised ego make it inside. 

Jonathan sits on the stone bench protruding from the wall. It’s all making Jonathan’s head ache: Not Peter and his three friends leaving behind a house of ghosts, his own kidnapping, and this Mysterio fellow, who seems to be heading it all. And now Jonathan is in chains but Not Peter is in trouble and who else could save him? No one else even knows he’s gone. 

Jonathan is no hero. He’s a helper, but not a hero. He’s never been. He’s not cunning enough, clever enough, selfless enough. 

But for Peter? Either of them—his promise, his Prince? For them? He supposes he could learn. 

Jonathan tries, still, to get free. He stomps on the cuffs at his ankles to try and pry them open. He bends his thumbs painfully inward in an attempt to slip the chains off his wrists. No matter how hard he tugs, there is no give. 

“Please,” he implores them. “Let me out.” 

Nothing. 

“You’re magic chains, aren’t you? Can’t you hear me? If I beg hard enough, will you let me go?”

Still silence. 

Jonathan huffs. “I hate magic.” 

He doesn’t think it’s his imagination when the cuffs seem to tighten out of spite. 

Ages later, after the sun has sunk into the horizon like a broken egg yolk and colored the inside of Jonathan’s cell the red of dusk’s early stages, Mysterio returns. “Good evening to my most honored guest,” he says, slipping into the cell like an illness. 

“I would appreciate it if you could leave me to stew in my misery in solitude.”

Mysterio’s bowl of a head fills with green mist—“Oh? Why so melancholy, Prince Jonathan?”—and then a picture appears within it like it’s a fortune-telling glass: Not Peter in a bed of gold and satin, eyes shut, mouth slightly open, drool dripping down his cheek. He’s disgusting. He’s alive. Those are both very important to Jonathan. 

“Your love,” says Mysterio, savoring every moment. His voice is low, sultry, as if he gets off on pure malevolence. “Prince Peter of the Southern Kingdom.” 

Jonathan freezes, blindsided. 

“Oh, how he waits for you,” Mysterio breathes. Jonathan cannot rip his eyes off Peter’s crooked-nosed profile. “Do you see the gracious whim of fate? Why, it’s the selfsame peasant boy who won the heart of you, my noble Prince, just yesterday evening.”

“What did you do to him?” Jonathan demands. He struggles, wrists wrenched by the cuffs. Peter is Peter. Of course he is. It’s poetic justice, Jonathan supposes. And how could he not be drawn to someone like that—someone that not only magic but _fate_ pushes him towards? The will of the universe— _that_ Jonathan trusts. “What did you _do?”_

“Sleep,” Mysterio says. “I’ve put him to sleep, you numpty, and those of the Kingdom have followed. There is no waking from this spell—not alone. Which is where you come in, my dear: you and only you would the power end this. And so I have you here. In my sight. The lone living man of a land grown still.”

“You’re cruel, to the pits of your heart,” Jonathan hisses. 

“Not at all—just clever.” Mysterio tilts his big glass head. The wavy vision of Peter trapped behind the pane snuffles a snore and chokes in his sleep, rolling onto his side. “He is, indeed, most wondrous fair,” Mysterio adds thoughtfully.

“He’s _not,”_ Jonathan says, burning. “He’s weird and busted and I _like_ him that way.” 

“Will you go along with the ambiance I’m creating?” Mysterio snaps. The image of Peter in his bulbous glass head dissipates into purple smoke. “Lord most merciful. I strive to cultivate a certain sort of vibe with my evildoings, and you are cramping my style.”

“And _you_ are cramping my booty call!” Jonathan gives one last almighty tug before giving in, sitting heavily down. He’s sweaty. He probably smells. He’s nothing, when not surrounded by friends. He needs a team behind him. To bolster him. He’s the heart, the glue, the singing spirit. He needs the rest of them. The brain, the hands. He needs a body to rouse. 

He’s never been the leader. Not with Sue on the throne and Valeria as her successor, Franklin after her, the pair of them dainty and knife-sharp and possibly rather evil. Jonathan is on the side, cheering. 

He isn’t meant to be alone. 

The heat in his chest dissipates at that. In its wake, he feels cracked: a window letting cold air seep through. “How long will he be like this?” Jonathan asks miserably, dreading the answer. 

“A hundred years to a steadfast heart are but a day,” Mysterio says. 

Jonathan looks up. A hundred years. By that time, he’ll be dead twice over or worse: all disgusting and old and wrinkly. He’ll smell like socks all the time. No one wants to kiss the lips of an old man. 

“You can’t,” Jonathan says. “You _can’t._ How could you do that to someone—take their life away? Why?”

“It is a curse upon his parents for granting unto me the greatest of all slights before the eyes of the entirety of the two Kingdoms,” Mysterio says. 

Jonathan’s eyebrows raise at that. 

“A week after the Prince’s Brit Milah, the royal family celebrated with the Kingdom,” Mysterio breathes. “There was a grand feast, a party spanning several sunlit days. An invitation was not sent to me. I could’ve granted the boy with gifts like his friends, those of the fae. I am well-known in his Kingdom, and yet I was ignored.”

“Probably because you’d make a shit guest,” Jonathan says, but something grows unsettled in his chest at the idea of a powerful citizen being snubbed by the royal family. Jonathan is an expert in social customs. A King should invite even the most bothersome of warlocks to a celebration—especially one honoring a new Prince. To not invite Mysterio is to imply he has no place in the new Kingdom, and, purposefully or not, that message is rather uncouth for a King. “Your ‘tude sucks and your head is a fishbowl. I wouldn’t want you at my dinner party either. But even that wouldn’t warrant the death of the Prince.”

The swirling smoke in Mysterio’s head goes thicker, deeper purple, plum juice and dyed gowns. “They forced my hand when they marked me a social pariah. It was their move first; I simply parried.”

“The boy’s parents are dead,” Jonathan points out. “Why perpetuate the curse, this hatred between you, if they’re _gone?_ Queen May didn’t slight you. Her husband, the late King, didn’t slight you either. This isn’t between you and them.” 

“Their slighting—” Mysterio says, leaning closer to Jonathan’s face, enough that the tip of his nose almost smudges against the glass, “—comes through their avoidance. It is their duty to maintain relations with all classes of their people. The moment the late King and Queen died was the moment this became the responsibility of the new throne. Thus, the animosity remains until I am granted a proper public apology—until I’m treated like a human rather than an unsorry accident.”

“There’s no one left to grant you that apology,” Jonathan says quietly. “You put them all to sleep.”

Mysterio cocks his head. “I only put the boy Prince to sleep. The descent of the Kingdom was not done by my hand.” Jonathan thinks that Mysterio would be grinning, if he could see his face. “It is but another damnation they’ve fallen into by prohibiting their such acclaimed goodness from touching me.”

“You intended to murder the Prince in cold blood,” Jonathan says, but he’s suddenly rather unsure what he’s arguing and why. 

Mysterio _did_ deserve a public apology, nineteen years ago, but Jonathan isn’t sure he can hold the consequences of a botched social custom against a dead King and a Queen who mourned not only her brother-and-sister-in-law, but her nephew, and then her husband as well. 

For a moment, Jonathan thinks of his sister and what she would do. She was hardly eighteen when she assumed the crown, first motherless and then fatherless, too, but Sue has within her a deep well of goodness that she smothers with a thick towel of pure authority. She rules justly. She would have invited Mysterio in the first place, but were she in May’s position, she’d issue a public apology now. She’d see it as morally due. 

No one, it seems, is as good and strong as Jonathan’s sister. 

He knows, now, what is right. And while lacking the authority to grant Mysterio an apology himself, Jonathan has an idea of what he must do in order to make it happen. 

Mysterio stares for a long moment, as if he can read the winding of Jonathan’s thoughts. “An absolution is warranted every moment I am still alive and on this earth,” he says. “Until I am apologized to for their slighting, they are in the wrong. Whether it was Queen May’s decision or that of her predecessors, it is her power now. It is her responsibility to make a move towards amity. Not mine. That they cannot give me what I desire is but a coincidence: we’ve found ourselves in the inbetween, my lord, and there’s but one way out.” He straightens and clears his throat. “Remember: I hold the upper hand, Prince Jonathan. I’d stop trying to be smart, if I were you.”

Mysterio turns. Jonathan watches. 

With all the grandeur of fastening a button into place, Jonathan understands—Mysterio is correct in his assertion and this must be made right. 

This is so much bigger than Peter. 

It is now Jonathan’s responsibility as interim ruler until his Kingdom awakens to prevent more destruction, but Jonathan knows, too, in his heart, that a battering upon the Kingdom as recompense for its crimes is not the worst thing that could happen. He’s broken his fair share of crystal goblets and feeding troughs in moments of anger. 

But if he doesn’t stop Mysterio, break the curse, there won’t be a Kingdom of people to return to. 

He cannot stop imagining the reality inside the walls of the Southern Kingdom now: thousands as good as dead in the streets, lifeless and pale like fallen puppets. 

Alone. If Jonathan fails, he will be alone, and he cannot _cannot_ live like that. 

So he has to stop Mysterio. And he feels like shit about it on every breath. 

Jonathan’s head erupts with a stress migraine. Why him? If only God could smite him here and now, he would be so much better off. 

But, he guesses, after pushing himself through this labor, everything can finally be good. Mysterio will be apologized to, and Jonathan will have his suitor, and the Kingdom will ascend into the prosperous peace it has been praying for over the past nineteen years. 

Moral greyness is an affliction Jonathan is awfully familiar with. Moral greyness, he supposes, is the armor he’s now wearing himself. It’s heavy. And silver. Jonathan has always looked better in gold. 

The door to his cell closes with a thud that startles him. A wave of dust rises. Jonathan sneezes. 

“Bless you,” comes a voice. 

He jumps about a foot into the air, whipping a glance over his shoulder to find its origin. 

A glowing, green ember of sorts. A bright flash—“Close your eyes, darling”—and when Jonathan looks again, it’s a girl. She’s blond, pretty, decked in a green frock. Beside her, in another pair of flashes, come a boy in rich dark blue and a girl in red with a chin-dimple and a glare like a sharpened point. Both are brown-skinned and lithe with ears slightly too pointed and bones a hair too delicate to be entirely usual. 

“Fae,” Jonathan says. 

“I’m Mary Jane,” says the girl in red. It’s just the right shade—it doesn’t clash with the dyed auburn of her curls. Jonathan’s respect for her is immediately high as a result. 

“I’m Gwendolyne, and this is Harry,” adds the blond. 

_Oh,_ Jonathan thinks. “You’re Peter’s Gwendolyne,” he says. “Peter’s Harry and Mary Jane. You are, aren’t you? He told me about you.”

Gwendolyne takes a step forward, eyes falling wide. She takes Jonathan’s hands in hers and rubs her thumbs over his knuckles. “Yes,” she says, “yes, dear boy. We’re Peter’s, and you are too.”

“I am,” Jonathan says. “I’m his.”

“Then you’ll help us save him,” says Harry. It isn’t a question. 

Will Jonathan save Peter? 

Yes. Peter deserves to be saved. 

But that doesn’t seem like his priority anymore. 

“I’ll help,” Jonathan promises, mind racing. 

“You’ll kiss him?” Mary Jane asks brusquely, crossing past Jonathan. She grabs one of his chains where it connects to the wall and yanks on it with a grunt. It doesn’t budge. 

Jonathan rips his eyes from her to Gwendolyne, then Harry. “Um,” he says. 

“True love’s first kiss,” Harry explains. “That’s how you wake him. That’s the spell. Rather well thought-out of Mysterio, considering Peter was cloistered in the middle of the woods his whole life. Who would be able to wake him, if not for you?”

“I—dunno.”

“Do you love him?” Mary Jane asks from behind him. 

Love is a big word. Love is a lot to promise. Jonathan has always been the type to fall in love faster than he could think to stop, but this is overwhelming. He’s known Peter for one day. Jonathan isn’t _in love_ with him. 

But he could be. Eventually. He could love Peter, for all of his bad attitude and armpit smell and reckless, ill-advised wandering through forests. He’s sure of it. Something whispers it in that echoing space between his ears. 

“I could,” Jonathan says. “I could love him. Sure. Why not?” 

“Truly?” Gwen asks, squatting before Jonathan. Her hand touches his cheek. “You truly could?” 

“I think so,” Jonathan says. “He’s terrible. I like that about him very much.”

Gwen and Harry share a sad sort of smile. Mary Jane shoots them all a look. 

“He’ll have to do,” she says. 

“Gee, thanks,” Jonathan says. 

Mary Jane says, “We’re wasting time,” and whips out a beautiful golden wand. Gwen and Harry do the same. 

He gives a small nod to the faeries. 

They begin to drill at Jonathan’s chains. 

To save Peter, he’ll have to step up. To win a chance at true love. Promised love. The kind that comes straight from the universe itself. No magic; just magnetism. 

To save Mysterio, he’ll have to be a hero. 

Love and heroism: two things Jonathan has never had and always wanted. By the time the sun sets on them again, Jonathan’s hands will either be full of them or made permanently cold and empty in pursuit. 

Jonathan’s chains fall. 

“The road to true love may be barred by still many more dangers,” Mary Jane says seriously. She lifts Jonathan’s chin with two fingers and meets his eyes. “You alone must face them. Are you certain you can?”

He rises to his feet, rubs his sore wrists, and says, “Lead me.”

Mary Jane stares, then finally softens a degree. She nods once. “Then take with you this Shield of Virtue.” A wave of her wand and it spans his arm, heavy and cold. “This mighty Sword of Truth.” It weighs in Jonathan’s left hand. “These weapons of righteousness shall triumph over evil.”

“One more,” whispers Gwen, hurrying forward. “From me, dear Jonathan, loyal heart, I’ll give one thing only.” She waves her wand before him. A storm of golden dust swirls around him, swallows him up, wrenches the breath from his lungs until he’s gasping. Then it falls to the stones below. His clothes retain an odd, yellowish glow. Gwen reaches over and runs a thumb over his cheek. She’s so good, deeply. It oozes out of her. “You’ll know when to use my gift,” she says. “Close your eyes and call upon it. It will come.” 

“Thank you,” he says. Something in him feels certain, now. He’ll be carrying pieces of Peter with him through these gifts—through his closest friends. They’re protecting him. Making him better. He can do this. 

“Now, come,” Mary Jane says, “we must hurry.”

She opens the door. 

Jonathan follows. 

~

It goes like this:

A sword so smart it knocks aside the hordes of minions without cutting a single one. 

A chase, along the trellises and balconies and rooftops, deteriorated stone crumbling beneath Jonathan’s boots, sliding and smacking and damp with intermittent rain. 

An avalanche of boulders turned into a cloud of feathers by a quick-thinking Mary Jane, silvery and soothing as they fall. A wave of arrows turned to bluebells by Gwendolyne. That snitch of a crow turned into a new garden statue by Harry, laughing all the while, as if this twisted excitement breathes new life into his chest. 

Samson, waiting and brilliant and fiercely strong, familiar as anything when Jonathan leaps onto his back and spurs him with a clench of his heels. 

Cauldrons of hot oil become a rainbow. Gargoyles become protectors. Dark becomes light. And Jonathan, through Peter, finds himself a team. 

“Hurry, oh, hurry, Jonathan!” Gwen cries, and the three of them shoot waves of sparks beneath Samson’s hooves, flying them across great canyons with ease. 

Mysterio fires spells, and so do the faeries, and Jonathan pushes forward. “Come on, come on,” Jonathan whispers. “Come on.”

From the dirt rises a forest of thorns meant to entomb him, all bushes and brambles and spikes as long as his forearm. 

Jonathan hacks the branches away, heart pounding painfully in his chest. His breaths are gasped. This forest is so thick. So deep. He barely feels the scratches cutting through his shirt, that catch on his cloak, that carve into his cheeks. There are two things to do, and he’ll do them. 

“We’re closer now,” Jonathan assures himself, the faeries shrunk down to bug-size, their wands humming as they slice through the growth. “I can almost feel him.”

His blood pounds in earnest, here, below the Southern Castle. Looking straight up, he sees the tower where Peter snores. The highest height. Perhaps if Jonathan thinks hard enough, Peter will hear him through his dreams. _We’re coming. We’ll save you. I can do both. I promise._

Jonathan swipes, his fear boiling to anger for goddamned everyone involved in this mess. _Good,_ he thinks scathingly. Anger, he can use. He forces it into every slice. The brambles begin to disappear, Samson carrying him further, closer to the castle—almost to the southernmost point of the Kingdom—the great cliff overlooking the greenish sea. 

“No!” he hears Mysterio cry. “It can’t be!”

“Except it _can_ be! Ha _ha!”_ Jonathan cuts through the last of the brambles, Samson galloping at full speed. 

Mysterio appears before them in a shower of purple sparks and green smoke, outrage in every inch of him. 

Samson nearly tosses Jonathan in his effort to stop short. Jonathan clings, shielded arm round his neck, legs tight to keep from sliding off. 

“Now shall you deal with me, O Prince,” Mysterio says, a pair of blank eyes glowing eerily from the pins of his cloak. His whole being catches alight, the flames tall and vitriolic green. Mysterio throws his arms up. Sparks go spitting off him, terrible and hot. Samson starts backwards. Jonathan shields his eyes against the light, this great hulking silhouette growing out of the fire, so black that it seems to suck the darkness out of the very sky. 

“I don’t want to fight you!” Jonathan shouts, but his voice is lost in the gale whipping around him. 

Against the horizon, right in the middle of the bridge leading to the castle grounds, Mysterio grows into an enormous griffon. He’s purple-feathered and oil-slick skinned, lithe and muscular with eyes that glow green in their sockets. He’s angry. 

But Jonathan is angry too. For Mysterio. For himself. For Peter. For their Kingdoms. For their goddamn lives. 

He raises his shield and his sword and spurs Samson forward. 

Before he can so much as swipe, Mysterio’s eagle mouth opens to relay a blaze of fire so fierce and focused that, when it hits Jonathan’s shield, it tosses him from Samson’s back, hard onto the stone with a thud. His shoulder and arm sting with a sharp pain, but Jonathan pushes to his feet. Pure adrenaline courses through him, keeps him upright. 

A fire-breathing, magic-wielding griffon. If Jonathan weren’t so terrified of what Mysterio could do in his blind rage, he’d find him to be rather badass. 

Another shot of forceful flames lands right before Jonathan’s feet. He jumps back, but the momentum knocks the stone of the bridge into the salty tributary below. Jonathan scrambles backwards further yet, tripping into the edge of the brambles as he evades another blow of fire. 

He realizes, as it sets a branch near his head alight, that he cannot feel the heat. The flames burn bright, sending the land into yellowish, shallow relief, and Jonathan is entirely unbothered by what must be singeing warmth. 

“Oh, Gwen,” he breathes, and resolve grows in his chest like his own beast to this battle, “thank you. Thank you.”

As Jonathan finds his footing once more, Mysterio’s beak pokes through the brambles, smoke trailing from his maw. With a strength he pulls from his very core, Jonathan smacks the sword blunt-side down onto Mysterio’s beak once, then twice. 

“Stop trying to kill me! Let’s talk about this!” 

Mysterio growls, pulls away, and, in one great breath, sets the entirety of the bramble forest alight. The branches are dry and catch quickly, the flames rising bright and tall until the castle is entirely ringed with licking red and gold. 

“Higher ground!” Mary Jane cries from above Jonathan. “Come, boy, up!”

Jonathan runs for the cliffside, following her instructions, knowing all the while that the sea spreads out on the far side of it. If Jonathan lets himself be cornered, he’ll fall. And if he falls, he’ll hit the water. This fall is enough to be his end; this, he is sure of. 

But he thinks of the fae with their dainty silver wings and their ferocious hearts and their great power. He feels—he hopes—they will not let him tumble. 

One hand at a time, Jonathan scales the rocky side of the cliff. Handholds pop out as needed and Harry lights the easiest way with showers of his crystal blue sparks. It’s as Jonathan reaches the precipice at the top that Mysterio meets him. Jonathan whirls over his shoulder, sword swinging, meeting each of Mysterio’s great snaps with the flat side of his blade. He doesn’t think. He just moves—swinging and rolling and ducking. 

But Mysterio is _bigger._ Stronger. Magical. And understandably unwilling to compromise. 

Jonathan is just a boy. 

He has toys, and he has heart. He has good intentions. He wants peace, and for his Kingdom to be free. He wants them all to come out of this alive. 

He wants what’s _right—_ for Mysterio to be apologized to. 

Is that enough? Is anything enough?

He finds his feet at the edge of the cliff. He hears the waves smack hungrily against the rock beneath him. The salt spray stings his eyes. 

His last stand. It started for the boy in the forest; it ends for the man in the air. Will it have been worth it?

“Jonathan!” Gwen cries from above.

_It will come,_ she had said. 

Mysterio is but a foot before him. A sword’s length. 

Jonathan, sandwiched between a hunger and a great fall, closes his eyes. 

He thinks, _please._

He opens his eyes and he’s on fire. 

He drops his shield in shock. Great flickering flames lick across his arms, up his neck, down the length of his legs. 

He looks up at Mysterio, smoking, and feels sparks spit from his eyes. “The night has come, has it?” Jonathan yells. “You say you’re the dark, but I bring the light. As long as you live, I burn!” His next breath is desperate, stuttered. “Please. Let me light the way.”

“I owe you nothing,” Mysterio says through the griffon’s mouth. 

Jonathan mashes his lips together and nods. He takes a step forward, then a skip, and the wind catches under his feet. He bobs in the air right before Mysterio’s feathered face and whispers, “Give it your best shot.”

A roar, a clawed swipe, but Jonathan shoots out of the way, flying like he himself is of the fae. He’s weightless, all wind in his tummy, fierce down to the marrow of himself. 

Magic. _Fuck_ magic. Fucking magic. He’s flying. His heart pounds like a drum line. 

Now they’re even, the two of them: both can ride the breeze, both will soar rather than fall, both gifted. With odds like these, Jonathan allows himself to entertain the thought that he might survive the day and do some good with that chance. 

He loops and swerves until Mysterio’s fur smokes, dodges aerial attacks with the grace of an albatross. 

From these heights, he’s nearer to Peter than he’s been since yesterday. Cloistered in that tower as he is, close to the clouds. A promise, a spell, and more than one way to break it. 

One way to truly be a hero. 

Jonathan lands unsteadily and hears, from behind him, a murmur, _Sword of Truth, fly swift and sure—that evil die and good endure!_

“Throw it,” Harry urges into Jonathan’s ear. 

Jonathan doesn’t. 

He can’t. 

“It will kill him,” he says. 

“Isn’t that the point?” grits Mary Jane. 

“What if I subdue him instead?” Jonathan says, dodging a hunk of rock and thinking fast. “If I subdue him, can you capture him? With magic? Somehow?”

“A siphoning spell,” suggests Gwen, diving past in a blur of pea green. 

“But to siphon so much power? Could we hold it?” asks Harry. 

“We’ll release it into the sky to counter his spell,” says Mary Jane. “The moment Peter awakens, the Kingdom will rise alongside him.” She bobs in the air, giving Jonathan an assessing look. “You’re good,” she decides. “Your heart is good, my Prince.”

Jonathan has no time or right to feel pleased by the praise. He shoots a lazy ball of fire towards Mysterio, who dodges it easily. “On my ready,” Jonathan says. 

He rises higher into the air, high enough that it begins to grow cool and damp around him, and, with a tug in his navel, he raises his output of heat. 

When Mysterio is nearly even with him, eyes narrowed and suspicious, Jonathan dives. 

He goes headfirst towards the sea, plummeting like a stone tossed from the heavens, salt whipping through his hair and wind pushing his cheeks back. He grows closer, closer, and his stomach turns as he watches the waves crest white, and then he jerks hard to the left, stomach nearly skimming the surface. Behind him, Mysterio follows, a little damp but no worse for wear. 

Jonathan doesn’t mind. If there’s one thing he’s good for, it’s winning in a chase. 

He glides, arms tucked and legs tight, up along the height of the cliff, towards the clouds, further into the sea, never growing tired. But Mysterio slows. He grows clumsy. The flapping of his great eagle wings becomes uneven, strained. Jonathan can feel exhaustion rolling off him in sheets. 

When Jonathan cuts short over the sea surface now, Mysterio does not stop in time. He tumbles under the surface with a garbled squawk. 

“Now!” Jonathan shouts, letting a stream of fire spread a few inches over the level of lapping waves. If Mysterio were to poke up for a breath, he’d singe himself. 

The faeries dive into the water, cheeks puffed with breath. Seconds later, a hole pokes through Jonathan’s blanket layer of flames. The three faeries come through. Harry and Gwen go shooting skyward like a pair of lost stars, great waves of magic pouring off them, warping the air like the stove as it boils soup. Mysterio—returned to human form—soaked through and ribboned with glowing green strands, is restrained by Mary Jane, who looks satisfied. He strains halfheartedly, exhaustedly, against his bonds. 

Jonathan approaches them, eyes locked on Mysterio. “I’m sorry,” Jonathan says. “You were mistreated by your Kingdom. I believe with all my heart that you are worthy of our forgiveness—deserving of our apology.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Mysterio asks, voice raw. 

“There’s always a chance for forgiveness,” Jonathan says. “I can’t forgive you for Peter, for what you’ve done to him now, but if you explain what you felt all those years—that great betrayal that festered—I’m sure he’ll understand the source.” Jonathan clears his throat, feeling eight shades of awful. “For what it’s worth, I sincerely hope you receive your apology, and will fight in your favor to make it come.”

Before another word can be exchanged, Jonathan shoots skyward. He goes up and up until he reaches the peak of the cliff once more. There, he lilts toward the ground, his fire sputtering to nothing. When his boots make contact, he collapses to his knees, jittery with adrenaline and a strange exhaustion. 

He presses his face into his palms. 

He hopes with every bit of himself that he’ll continue in this grain and save more than one life tonight. 

~

The palace of the Southern Kingdom is enormous—as broad as it is tall. The staircases wind and echo, and Jonathan’s thighs burn. He goes up, following flight after flight of steps. He climbs for ages. 

Jonathan stops for a moment, slumping against the wall. He presses a palm to his chest and takes a few rapid, gulped breaths, eyes stinging, knees weak. He feels wobbly. He feels lightheaded. He feels wholly out of his element. 

He thinks he’s relieved. The hard part is over. 

Now, he wakes and woos. He’s good at that. He can do this part. 

He sets his jaw, inhales hard through his nose, and pushes himself upright. With one hand on the wall for balance, he stumbles onward. He doesn’t stop. He can’t. 

Eventually, the stairways stop winding. The floor grows even beneath Jonathan’s boots. He thanks God. He’d rip a hammy if he’d had to climb another fifteen steep stone steps in this condition. 

Jonathan breaks through the double doors at a jog. When he sees the room before him, he stops short. 

The first thing he notices isn’t the bed, nor the boy, nor the coverlet embroidered with strands of gold. It’s the windows. 

They’re tall and wide, a chess-board of glass panes splitting the cliffside into a neat graph of sea-spray and slate roughage and yellowish grass. The castle looks down upon everything below it, heaven-brushing and stately. It leaves a shadow upon the town below. The little cottages dotting across the horizon, all thatched roofs and soft walls, are darkened by it. The sky is the same greyish tone it’s been since the spell drizzled over the Kingdom. Any light that passes through is bright, white, and harsh. 

The Kingdom is quiet. Deserted. All but dead. 

Jonathan had never dreamed this would be the way he’d really meet his Prince. He’d foreseen a ball, a bow, a dance. Fineries and cakes and a toast. 

Instead, the boy from the wood lies in a bed wide enough for eight of him, his head lost amongst a stack of pillows, his neck bent awkwardly. One arm lies askew atop the sheets, the other curled beside his head. He’s snoring. Loudly. 

Jonathan feels, immediately, assuaged. 

Peter is not pretty. Peter is a slapdash collection of angles and anger in tights. Jonathan thinks he likes this better. Best. 

This is so much more than anything he’d dreamed. 

“Hi,” he says, as if Peter can hear. Maybe he can. Jonathan certainly doesn’t know how magic sleeping spells work. “I’m Prince Jonathan of the Northern Kingdom. I’m—we’re meant to love each other. Did you know that?” Jonathan approaches the bed, his boots clicking loudly against the marble floors. “I’ve known forever. I thought this was going to be special, you know? The moment we really meet? I thought it’d be worthy of storybooks. Well,” Jonathan says, and he perches on the edge of the mattress. Now that he’s here, that itch to rush is all but gone from his bones. “This whole mess may be worthy of a story, someday. But it’s rather horrific. I’m sure it wouldn’t sell. Monetizing the pain and panic of two Princes and a warlock would be in bad taste.” His hand finds the side of Peter’s neck, slips across his cool skin. He finds Peter’s pulse. It’s steady and sound. “We deserve a soft story. A happy ending, I think.”

Jonathan rips his gaze from Peter’s sleep-puffy cheeks to take in the room once more. To memorize this place, from the hulking empty fireplace to the rubies sewed into the bed-curtains to the snuffed-out chandelier dangling above them. It’s so lavish. So golden. So cold. 

That warmth he’d chased from Peter’s skin is gone. It’s time for it to return. 

“I’m going to wake you now,” Jonathan tells Peter. 

Peter snuffles a snore, a bit of drool rolling down his cheek. 

“Maybe I’ll just…” Jonathan presses his lips against Peter’s forehead. It’s like kissing long-cold candle wax. 

For a moment, everything is quiet. Then Peter stirs—a twitch of his brow, a scowl like shaking sleep off is the greatest of crimes. 

Jonathan cannot help but smile. His body is ready to melt out from under him. His eyes sting with tears from the pure exhaustion hitting him. But Peter is here, and he is awake, and he is Jonathan’s, and that is good. 

“Hbgnh,” Peter says. His hands come up to knuckle his eyes. He smacks his tongue. “My mouth tastes like death. What the fuck.”

“I’m glad I skipped your lips, then,” Jonathan says. 

Peter’s eyes shoot open. “You,” he says. 

“Me,” Jonathan agrees. 

Peter scans the room. “Huh?”

“You’re my Prince,” Jonathan says, feeling strange. “This whole time you’ve been my Prince. My Peter.”

Peter frowns. “Your Prince?” Then, “Oh. You’re the Prince I’m betrothed to. The Prince of the Southern Kingdom.”

“Mm. Small world, amirite?” 

“Small woods, more like.” 

Jonathan’s hand finds the top of Peter’s mop of curls. His thumb skims Peter’s forehead. “Yup. You know—there’s some irony in the fact that they hid you in that forest so you wouldn’t die, but you didn’t even have to leave the place to stumble upon trouble.”

“I always manage to,” Peter admits. 

“That’s okay,” Jonathan grins. He feels delirious. “I like trouble.”

“What a relief that is.”

“Can I—?”

Peter answers by leaning up and sealing their lips together. 

For a moment they’re still, like they’re afraid, and then they settle. It’s chaste and chivalrous and nothing like either of them, but it’s also right. Something slides into place in the pit of Jonathan’s stomach. It says, _ah. There he is._

Peter has truly awful morning breath. 

But Mysterio will be rehabilitated, absolved of his crimes, and granted a public apology for the actions of the crown. The Kingdoms will awaken, and the Queen will meet her boy, and Jonathan will be able to meet Peter, well and truly and right. And maybe he’ll love him, the way those impulsive, foolish book characters fall in love in Lord Benjamin’s novels. 

Peter pulls away, a sleep-soft smile taking years off his pointy face. 

Jonathan goes warm all over. 

They’ve got all the time in the world to figure this out. 

But, with the way the world keeps pushing them together, Jonathan can hazard a guess that their future will burn bright. 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know your thoughts and feelings <3 i've been stressing about this fic every minute of every day since i started it but i hope HOPE this is alright!
> 
> utter love from me to you! see you back here on day 7 for one last fic!


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